Under the nom de plume of Plankton Wat, Oregon-based instrumentalist Dewey Mahood uses textured layers of droning electric guitars and sonic-propulsion synthesizers to create echoes and reverberations over mystic valley landscapes. Throughout the mind-expanding Spirits, recorded by Mahood in his basement on a four-track over the course of 2011—you can feel the changing of the seasons, the coming and going of the lengthy but warming Pacific Northwest rains, the ancient Viking sage smoke that drifts along the coast from the old growth forests as bodysuit-wearing surfers brave freezing cold waters. With simple percussion loops like a shaker and conga drum ("Orange Clouds") as a starting point, Plankton Wat's music flows and ebbs like low rolling clouds sweeping past a smoky campsite. Mahood has cited such spiritual odyssey influences as Alice Coltrane on his work, though his label Thrill Jockey is left enough of the dial that you can feel the rough edges and underground air as well as the sanctification.

Coming in low on streaming psychedelic guitar echoes, the title track swirls to a shaker with echoing guitar drones that layer over and spill down over the listener like a flood of electric, saliva gland-activating slow-mo riffage. “Islands,” a highlight track, finds solace in guitar digital-delay pedals, the ever present drum track anchoring everything like a low, steady shaman's rattle as the guitars paint huge swaths of burnt orange and deep red across the setting skies. "Stream of Light" brings in a spine-tingling guitar sound similar to the work of Robert Fripp, an icon in the world of rock/alternative instrumental music.

The perfect soundtrack for a stark evening camping in giant redwoods, Plankton Watt's Spirits never wavers from its midtempo shaker and conga drum track or its flowing, distorted guitar-drone style (electric and acoustic). However, the point of an album like this isn't an array of fist-shaking rock but a spiritual platform for excursions into the psyche, for gazing into the fire even if it’s just a single candle on the lip of the bathtub. In that area Spirits is without equal, a perfect blend of the shamanistic and the serene, the crunchy and the calm, the familiar and the far, far out.